SAMPLES OF OUR WORLD PREMIERES AND NEW WORKS

"Edgar Allen Poe's three mysteries involving C. August Dupin have been adapted for the stage by James Rana, also one of six able actors in these delightful tellings . . .Put together as The Poe Mysteries, the show is directed with crisp, clear simplicity by Gayle Stahlhuth, East Lynne Theater Company's artistic director." For full review click here -Howard Shapiro for THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

James Rana and Shelley McPherson in THE POE
MYSTERIES

2012 World PremiereTHE POE MYSTERIES

﻿﻿Adapted by James Rana, The Poe Mysteries is based on the first modern detective stories ever written. C. Auguste Dupin is a recluse living in Paris, avoiding people and the bill collectors, when an American journalist comes to interview him. As the great detective recalls his cases, the characters spring to life on stage. Six actors portray 50 roles in Edgar Allan Poe's famous “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Murder of Marie Roget,” and “The Purloined Letter.”

Everyone in the cast had performed with ELTC before: Mark Edward Lang (The Guardsman), Shelley McPherson (Why Marry?), James Rana (Sherlock Holmes Adventure of the Norwood Builder), Thomas Raniszewski (Berkeley Square), Fred Velde (Dulcy), and Grace Wright (He and She). Gayle Stahlhuth directed. This production was produced in July and August in Cape May, and moved to Ocean Professional Theatre Company in Barnegat, NJ in October. ﻿

﻿ Edgar Allan Poe﻿(1809-1849) is considered the creator of the modern detective story, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle credits him with influencing his own Sherlock Holmes creation. The word “detective” was created by Poe. Born in Boston and an orphan by age three, Poe was sent to live with John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant in Richmond, VA. He attended the University of Virginia, but Allan didn't give him enough money to cover expenses, so Poe was forced to leave. At 18, Poe published his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane, and attended West Point. After being expelled from this academy, his aunt Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia, invited Poe into their Baltimore home. He married Virginia, and became an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger. From 1837-1847, Poe, Virginia and Maria lived in Philadelphia and NYC. In 1842, Virginia contracted tuberculosis. Two years later, Poe became an editor for The Evening Mirror, and when this magazine published “The Raven,” Poe finally received the fame he sought, but Virginia was growing worse. In 1847, at age 24, she died, and Poe was devastated. For the next two years, Poe gave lectures and sought backers to start a new magazine. While traveling between Richmond to Philadelphia, he stopped in Baltimore. He was found, unconscious, in the bar room of a public house that was being used as a polling station for a local election, and was taken to a hospital where he died. Poe never regained consciousness and the cause of his death remains a mystery.

Lorna Lable as EMMA GOLDMAN

﻿2010 World premiereEMMA GOLDMAN: MY LIFE(Commissioned by ELTC)

​Written and performed by NYC-based actress Lorna Lable, directed by Karen Case Cook. Wise and witty, Emma always spoke her mind, whether it was on women's rights or the widening gap between rich and poor. She was a fascinating woman in a fascinating time: America in the early 1900s, teeming with immigrants like herself, all longing for a better way of life. Places where it has played since Cape May include Ohio State University and the Metropolitan Playhouse in NYC.

Lorna's theatrical credits include Not in Our Town at Manhattan Theatre Club, Bliss at Chelsea Playhouse also in NYC, Beau Jest at Lake George Dinner Theater, and Taxi Tales in Eastside Westside Theater in Los Angeles. Her film credits include Keeping the Faith directed by Ed Norton.

Karen Case Cook has a performance background in NY, regional and in NJ theaters including ELTC where she was in The Ransom of Red Chief, Ruth Draper's Company of Characters, You and I, and Two-Headed. Her directing credits include the Twentieth Century Way in Philadelphia and for ELTC, The Guardsman, Alice on the Edge, and the world premiere of Helpful Hints.

"You're witnessing one of the greatest activists in history answer questions from phantom colleagues sitting next to you. She is a masterful speaker, answering questions with authority and ease. She's passionate, insightful and from her answers, you soon realize she is eternally pulling for those who are lacking an advocate. And that's what you learn to love about her." Tom Sims for Exit Zero (NJ)

"Emma is superb. When ELTC's artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth commissioned New York actress Lorna Lable to write and perform Emma Goldman: My Life, it was one of Stahlhuth's wisest decisions ever." - Ed Wismer for Cape May Star and Wave

Gayle Stahlhuth and Stephanie Garrett in CHRISTMAS IN BLACK AND WHITE

2009 World Premiere CHRISTMAS IN BLACK AND WHITE

﻿Based on the writings of American authors, it’s holiday time told from the point of view of African-Americans and newly arrived immigrants, adapted and interpreted by two master storytellers: Stephanie Garrett and Gayle Stahlhuth.

Edward Everett Halewas born in Boston on April 3, 1822, the grand-nephew of the famous patriot Nathan Hale (1755-1776). At age 13, he entered Harvard, graduating second in his class. He taught school, worked as a journalist at his father’s paper, “The Boston Daily Adviser,” and wrote short stories, while studying theology. Hale was ordained in 1846 and soon became the minister for the Congregationalist Church of the Unity in Worcester. In 1852, he married Emily Baldwin Perkins, the niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and in 1856, became pastor for the South Congregational Church in Boston. Meanwhile, he was still writing stories for “Atlantic Monthly” and other publications. His first notable story was “My Double and How He Undid Me” (1859), and “The Man without a Country” (1863) published in the “Atlantic,” became his most famous work. In 1903, he was appointed Chaplain of the United States Senate, and when he was asked “Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?” he replied “No, I look at the Senators, and pray for the country.” Above all else, Hale was a philanthropist, championing all sorts of reform movements and one of his most famous quotes, “Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand," was adopted by the Lend-a-Hand Clubs and Look-up Legions. He died on June 10, 1909 and is buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory of Jamaica Plain, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. ﻿﻿﻿T. Thomas Fortune﻿ was born a slave in Marianna, Florida, on October 3, 1856, and was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. He attended a Freedmen’s Bureau school, and then Howard University from 1876 to 1877. In NYC, he became the editor and co-owner of several influential African-American newspapers: “The New York Globe” (1882–84) and “The New York Freeman,” which was renamed “The New York Age” in 1887. Fortune's tenure at “The New York Age” for over 20 years established him as the leading African-American journalist of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the paper became the nation's most influential African-American paper, protesting discrimination, lynching, mob violence, and disenfranchisement. In 1890, Fortune co-founded the Afro-American League, one of the earliest equal rights organizations in the United States and a precursor of the Niagara Falls Movement and The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He died on June 2, 1928. His home, in Red Bank, NJ, is a National Historic Landmark.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, but the family moved to Eatonville, Florida, when she was young, and for her, Eatonville was always home. Established in 1887, this rural community near Orlando was the nation's first incorporated African-American township. Her mother passed away when Hurston was only 13, and her father remarried a young woman, in whom he was far more interested on spending money and time than on his own children. Hurston worked a series of menial jobs, and struggled to finish her schooling. In 1917, she was in Baltimore and still hadn't finished high school. Needing to be a teenager to qualify for free public schooling, she dropped 10 years -- giving her age as 16 and the year of her birth as 1901. She graduated from Barnard College in 1928, and by 1935, had published several short stories and articles, as well as a novel (Jonah's Gourd Vine) and a collection of black Southern folklore (Mules and Men). Her other works include: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Tell My Horse (1938); Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948). She never received the financial rewards she deserved, although she was a key figure during the Harlem Renaissance era and was one of the most successful and significant African-American female writers in the first half of the 20th century. When she died on January 28, 1960, after suffering a stroke, her neighbors in Fort Pierce, Florida, took up a collection for her funeral. The collection didn't cover the cost of a headstone, so Hurston’s grave remained unmarked until 1973, when Alice Walker saw to it that a proper maker was placed, with the epitaph: "Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South."

Chester Himeswas born in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1909, of two different-thinking parents: his father, Joseph, a teacher, tried to do what he thought would be best for his family in a “white-driven” society, while his mother, Estelle, believed in standing up against inequality. He attended Ohio State University, but the mostly white environment "depressed" him. He neglected his studies, and was soon expelled. In November, 1928, he took money and jewelry from a house in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and fled in the owners’ Cadillac. At the pawn shop where he was going to sell the jewelry, he was arrested. Sentenced to 20 years at Ohio State Penitentiary, he served only seven-and-a-half. It was here, that his writing career began. (Ironically, O. Henry also began his writing career while serving time in the same prison almost 28 years before.) He first submitted his stories to black newspapers and magazines like “Abbott's Monthly,” then in 1934 “Esquire” published his short stories "Crazy in the Stir" and "To What Red Hell." His first detective novel, The Five-Cornered Square, won France’s La Grand Prix du Roman Policier for the best detective novel of 1957. He stayed with the detective genre throughout much of his writing career, including Cotton Comes to Harlem in 1965. He died in Moraira, Spain in November, 1984. Cynical to the end, he believed people were capable of anything.﻿

﻿Based on the popular O. Henry tale, adapted and directed by Gayle Stahlhuth, it's about two thieves who think all they have to do is capture a young boy and demand a ransom for his return. If it were only that easy! This comedy is riddled with O. Henry stories and passages—a delight for lovers of one of America’s favorite authors. In the cast is a violinist who played Irish and Appalachian tunes - and also took on several roles.

O. Henry(1862-1910)was a prolific short-story writer and a master of surprise endings, who wrote about the lives of ordinary people. A twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories. William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) was born in Greensboro, NC. His father, Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician. When William was three, his mother died, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother and aunt. William was an avid reader, but at fifteen left school, and moved to Texas where he worked in a drug store, on a ranch, and became a bank clerk in Houston. After moving to Austin, Texas, in 1882, he married. In 1884 he started a humorous weekly The Rolling Stone. When the weekly failed, he joined the Houston Post as a reporter and columnist. In 1897 he was convicted of embezzling money, although there has been much debate over his actual guilt. In 1898 he entered a penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio. While in prison O. Henry started to write short stories to earn money to support his daughter Margaret. His first work, "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" (1899), appeared in McClure's Magazine. After doing three years of the five years sentence, Porter emerged from the prison in 1901 and changed his name to O. Henry. He moved to New York City in 1902 and from December, 1903 to January, 1906, he wrote a story a week for the New York World, also publishing in other magazines. His first collection, Cabbages And Kings appeared in 1904. The second, The Four Million, was published two years later and included his well-known stories "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Furnished Room." The Trimmed Lamp (1907) included "The Last Leaf". Henry's best known work is perhaps the much anthologized "The Ransom of Red Chief", included in the collection Whirligigs (1910). The Heart Of The West (1907) presented tales of the Texas range. O. Henry published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his lifetime. O. Henry's last years were shadowed by alcoholism, ill health, and financial problems. He married Sara Lindsay Coleman in 1907, but the marriage was not happy, and they separated a year later. O. Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver on June 5, 1910, in New York. Three more collections, Sixes And Sevens (1911), Rolling Stones (1912) and Waifs And Strays (1917), appeared posthumously.﻿

Susan Tischler in HELPFUL HINTS

2008 World Premiere HELPFUL HINTS(Commissioned by ELTC)

​Susan Tischler adapted Mae Savell Croy’s Putnam's Household Handbook (1916) into a show that is both witty and wise. As Mrs. Croy, she explains everything from cleaning the stove and your clothes with kerosene, to leaving babies outside when they cry because children should not be spoiled and screaming (outside) is good for the lungs. She also discusses developing the mind, the importance of a cheerful doctor, and the comfort of the gymnasium suit!

The production was directed by Karen Case Cook with several actors taking on the supporting role of stage manager Wilcox, including Robert LeMaire, Thomas Raniszewski, Karen Case Cook, and Lee O'Connor. Costume was designed and built by Marion T. Brady.

Created at the request of The Chalfonte Hotel in 2008 to be performed in its Henry Sawyer Room, it returned in 2009, and moved to the Mad Batter in 2010, and ELTC own mainstage in 2011. In 2010, members of the Croy family traveled to see the show in Cape May in 2010. Between 2008-2012, it was performed for various women's and Red Hat groups in South Jersey, and for the Wildwood Historical Society.​

Jill Dalton as LIZZIE BORDEN

﻿﻿2007 World Premiere LIZZIE BORDEN LIVE﻿(Commissioned by ELTC)

Written and performed by Jill Dalton, directed by Jack McCullough, with original music by Emmy winning-composer Larry Hochman. Jill Dalton brings the legend to life in this provocative play that has audiences rethinking the sensational murders of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Borden on Aug. 4, 1892 in Fall River, MA. The only one tried for the murders was Andrew's daughter, Lizzie, who maintained her innocence and was acquitted. To this day, the case is considered unsolved, although many do believe that "Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41." Did she do it or not? You decide.Lizzie Borden Live has since been performed several times at The Eagle Performing Arts in Fall River, MA and around the country.

﻿Jill's credits include roles in Law and Order, Law & Order: CI, Rachel Getting Married, Veronika Decides to Die, Wall Street, Another World, All My Children, One Life to Live, As The World Turns and Saturday Night Live. She was also a stand up comic for several years and won the Mary Jo Comedy Show Award for stand-up comedy in NYC.

"Dalton enacts a Lizzie such as never before seen. Her accomplishment may be far the most accurate, the most thoroughly researched, and the most brilliantly complex Lizzie created for dramatic purposes. It is an accomplishment not only of theater and performance, but of Lizzie Borden scholarship: a tale woven with historical accuracy and intelligent speculation, one that does not try to solve the murders, but to puzzle out the mystery inside the woman herself." - Richard Behrens, critic for The Hatchet, Quarterly for The Lizzie Borden Society

Karen Case Cook and Gayle Stahlhuth in TWO-HEADED

2006 NJ Premiere TWO-HEADED

﻿Written by Julie Jensen, Playwright-in-Residence at the Salt Lake Acting Company, the play begins on September 11, 1857 – the day over 100 California-bound pioneers were killed in what became known asthe Mountain Meadows Massacre. Ten-year old Hettie and Lavinia are haunted by this Massacre for the rest of their lives. During the next forty years, through high jinks and humor, in horror and outrage, they each find their place in an intolerant, patriarchal Mormon society and the polygamy it espouses.

This was a co-production with the Women's Theater Company in Parsippany, NJ and Two-Headed opened in the spring of 2006 at this company, before coming down to ELTC in Cape May. Barbara Krajkowski, a co-founder and artistic director of Women’s Theater Company, directed.

Julie Jensen received a major grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, the NEA/TCG grant, is a recipient of the Kennedy Center Award for New American Plays (White Money), the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work (The Lost Vegas Series), the LA Weekly Award for Best New Play (Two-Headed), and the McKnight National Playwriting Fellowship (Wait!). She won the Mill Mountain Theatre Playwriting Competition three times (Tender Hooks, Last Lists of My Mad Mother, and Two-Headed). Her plays have been produced in London (The Lost Vegas Series) and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Last Lists of My Mad Mother). In the U.S. she has been produced by the Women's Project in NYC (Two-Headed and Cheat) as well as in theatres nationwide. Her work has been commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum, ASK Theatre Projects, and the Kennedy Center.

ELTC's programs are made possible in part through funding from The NJ State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of The National Endowment for the Arts, The NJ Department of State, Division of Travel and Tourism, the generosity of our Season Partners, and the generosity of many patrons.